The present invention relates to mobile devices, and more specifically, to shared data plans including a plurality of mobile devices.
Mobile device carriers are increasingly offering plans in which users are charged by data usage instead of voice or SMS usage. For example, a user may pay for a predetermined amount of data usage, (e.g., 10 GB) per month. Any amount of data over the monthly data allotment (e.g., 10 GB) is charged a premium overage fee.
Many data plans are structured as shared accounts or “family plans” where data allotment is shared among members of a family or specified group. Accordingly, all members of the shared account draw from the same pool of data. In a shared data environment, it is easy to exceed the allocated data amount of the account since users cannot always know the data usage of other members assigned to the shared account at a given time.